117: abnormal
The robot raised its cutting saw, attempting to cleave the ignorant human in half.
Chen Mo turned sideways, the sharp saw blade grazing past the tip of his nose.
Now!
He saw the gap.
Only two millimeters wide.
But in Chen Mo's eyes now, it was as wide as a soccer goal.
He had no weapon.
The rifle he had picked up from a guard earlier was long gone.
He only had his hands.
His right index and middle fingers pressed together, hardened to the extreme, and with fierce resolve, he plunged them into that gap!
Pfft!
There was no flesh and blood flying.
Only the sound of electrical sparks bursting.
Chen Mo's fingers were like two steel nails, precisely piercing the reactor's casing and shredding the control circuits inside.
Zzzzz—
The massive robot trembled, its red electronic eyes instantly dimming.
Then, it collapsed with a crash.
"Holy crap..."
Nightingale, hiding behind cover, stared with eyes wide as brass bells.
Dismantling a mecha with bare hands?
Is this even human?
"Don't just stand there!"
Chen Mo shook the machine oil from his hands, his gaze terrifyingly cold.
"There are two more."
The logic cores of the remaining two robots evidently couldn't comprehend what had just happened.
They hesitated for 0.5 seconds.
On the battlefield, that was the distance between life and death.
Chen Mo kicked off the ground, leaving a dent in the alloy floor.
He launched himself forward like a cannonball.
Bang!
He leaped onto the second robot's shoulder, clamping its mechanical head tightly between his legs, and grabbing the still-spinning gun barrel with both hands.
"Bend... for me!"
The veins on Chen Mo's neck bulged as he let out a low roar.
A grating sound of metal twisting echoed.
That Gatling gun barrel, made of fine steel, was actually bent ninety degrees by him, its muzzle shoved directly into the robot's head.
At this point, the trigger had not yet been released.
Da da da da!
The robot blew its own head off.
Flames shot up, and parts flew everywhere.
Chen Mo jumped down a split second before the explosion, rolling upon landing to dissipate the impact.
The third robot finally reacted.
It gave up shooting and charged forward, swinging its massive cutting saw.
"Su Qingxue!"
Chen Mo shouted without looking back.
"Understood!"
Although Su Qingxue was shocked, her professional training kicked in.
She poked her head out from cover, holding a portable jammer, and pressed the switch, aiming it at the robot.
Zzzz—
The robot's movements stiffened for a moment.
Just that moment.
Chen Mo had already closed in.
He didn't attack a weak point.
Instead, like a mad beast, he slammed a fist onto the robot's chest armor.
Boom!!
A dull, massive thud.
A deep fist print dented the three-centimeter-thick composite armor plate.
Then came the second punch, the third punch... Boom! Boom! Boom!
Each punch carried terrifying power capable of splitting mountains and cracking rocks.
Chen Mo's eyes were bloodshot; he was venting.
All the savagery accumulated in the Black Tower just now, all the agitation brought on by the backlash from the data entity, needed an outlet.
Crack.
The robot's chest armor completely shattered.
Chen Mo's hand plunged directly into its chest cavity, tearing out the still-flashing core processor.
He crushed it.
Snap.
The world fell silent.
Only the alarm and the air distorted by high temperatures remained in the passage.
Chen Mo stood amidst three piles of scrap metal, panting heavily.
His fists were covered in blood, skin and flesh ripped open, revealing stark white bones.
But he felt no pain.
In fact... some black threads were moving in the wound, weaving and repairing the damaged tissue at a visible speed.
"Monster..."
Nightingale emerged from behind cover, looking at Chen Mo's healing hand, and swallowed.
"Were you possessed by that data entity just now?"
Chen Mo looked at his hand, clenching it tightly.
That sense of power was very real.
And very dangerous.
Thousands of bees seemed to be buzzing in his head; it was a side effect of excessive data impacting his central nervous system.
"Possession isn't quite right."
Chen Mo flicked off the blood beads from his hand and picked up a gun that was still intact.
"Consider it a little supplement."
He turned his head, looking at the deformed blast door at the end of the passage.
"Three minutes left."
"This place is about to become the biggest firework show in Antarctica."
Su Qingxue glanced at the countdown on her wrist, her face pale.
"The elevator shaft is ahead, but... it's most likely out of power."
"Then we climb up."
Chen Mo strode forward.
"Climb?"
Su Qingxue and Nightingale exchanged glances; this was three hundred meters underground.
"What else? Fly up?"
Chen Mo kicked open the deformed blast door.
Behind the door was the elevator shaft.
Indeed, the elevator car had already plummeted to the bottom, leaving only a few bare steel cables dangling in the dark shaft.
The shaft walls were covered in frost, seemingly bottomless.
"I'll carry Su Qingxue."
Chen Mo slung the gun behind his back and squatted down.
"Nightingale, can you manage on your own?"
"A man can't say no, and a woman even less so."
Nightingale gritted her teeth, tied her gun securely, and flexed her wrists.
"As long as you don't throw me down, I can keep up."
"Come on."
Su Qingxue wasn't pretentious; she immediately lay on Chen Mo's back, her arms tightly wrapped around his neck.
Chen Mo stood up and walked to the edge of the shaft.
He took a deep breath.
The air was thick with machine oil and the smell of decay.
"Hold on tight."
Before his words finished.
He leaped.
Not downwards, but towards the opposite shaft wall.
Clang!
His fingers, like eagle talons, directly dug into the hard concrete wall, carving out five finger holes.
His arm strength was simply horrifying.
"A little... gentler."
Su Qingxue whispered in his ear.
The sensation of weightlessness and the sudden stop made her stomach churn.
"Bear with it."
Chen Mo exerted force with both arms, like a human gecko, and began to climb rapidly up the vertical shaft wall.
Each exertion left deep marks on the wall.
Nightingale followed behind, watching Chen Mo's inhuman speed, gritting her teeth and desperately trying to keep up using the climbing claws from her agent gear.
"Freak... definitely a freak..."
One hundred meters.
Two hundred meters.
The higher they went, the colder it got.
The shaft walls were covered in thick ice, making them slippery.
"Warning: Hypothermia."
"Warning: Muscle tissue overload."
Red warning boxes constantly popped up on Chen Mo's retina.
This was the system interface simulated by the data he had absorbed into his brain, operating autonomously.
His fingers were already frozen, mechanically digging into the wall purely by instinct.
Su Qingxue on his back was trembling.
Her body temperature was rapidly dropping.
"Don't sleep."
Chen Mo felt her abnormality and roared in a hoarse voice.
"Talk to me."
"What... what should I say..."
Su Qingxue's voice was as faint as a mosquito's buzz.
"Anything."
Chen Mo leaped three meters upwards again, hanging by one hand on a crossbeam, gasping for breath.
"Tell me what you plan to do after the Black Tower falls."
"I want... to make those files... public..."
Su Qingxue pressed her face against Chen Mo's cold back, murmuring.
"I want everyone to know... Arthur is an animal..."
"And then?"
"Then... find a place where no one knows me... and open a flower shop..."
"How cliché."
Chen Mo scoffed and exerted force upwards again.
"Is that all you aspire to?"
"What about you...?" Su Qingxue countered, "What do you want to do...?"
Chen Mo paused in his movements.
Do what?
It seemed his entire life, besides investigating cases and hunting down criminals, he hadn't done anything else.
Before, it was to find the murderers of his parents.
Now the murderers were found, and the organization was dismantled.
He seemed... unemployed?
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